Details are sketchy, but Sims, who has been KC Executive since 1996, is reportedly going to D.C. for a job at HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“No, it’s not true,” Sims spokeswoman Natasha Jones said in a phone call, even before the question was asked.

She said Sims denied the report when pressed about it by staffers late Thursday.

Sims has announced he’ll run for a fourth term as executive this year, but it’s long been maintained in local political circles that he would take the right federal job if offered one. Speculation intensified in recent months as reports surfaced that FBI agents were interviewing Sims associates to vet him for a potential job.

But after a dozen years as the county’s top elected official, the right job in Sims’ mind, presumably, would be one that brings with it meaningful executive authority.